MANILA — The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines-Episcopal Commission on Migrant and Itinerant People (CBCP-ECMI) expressed support to President Rodrigo Duterte’s order to investigate all placement and recruitment agencies, including the one that recruited slain overseas Filipino worker (OFW) Joanna Demafelis.
“We support and we appreciate the decision of the president that recruitment agency of Joanna be investigated, and all placement and recruitment agencies of which our overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) have suffered, abused and victimized by their employers,” said Bishop Ruperto Santos, chairman of the CBCP-ECMI.
He said that recruitment companies should look after the protection and safety of Filipino workers they recruited and sent abroad.
“They should be held accountable for the welfare and wellbeing of our OFWs. Their job is not just to send our OFWs abroad, but it is their responsibility that our OFWs are justly, very humanely treated and, contract works and salaries are strictly followed, fairly given and duly respected,” the Bataan prelate said.
He added that placement and recruitment firms that failed to do their part in protecting and ensuring the safety of Filipinos they deployed overseas should be dealt with accordingly.
“And those placement and recruitment agencies who are amiss, negligent and abusive should be investigated, prosecuted and lawfully punished,” the CBCP-ECMI chief said.
Earlier, Duterte directed the National Bureau of Investigation to look for the local recruiters of the slain OFW following the arrest of her employers, Lebanese national Nader Essam Assaf and his Syrian wife, Mona Hassoun.
The two are the principal suspects in the death of the 29-year old Demafelis whose body was found inside a freezer in an abandoned building in Kuwait City earlier this month.
The OFW was recruited by Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Global E-Human Resources Incorporated which was shut down in 2016. (PNA)
